As recently as five years ago, the Reporter was not just a well-respected paper, but one that outperformed the Niagara Gazette in exposing crime, graft, and scandal in the Niagara Frontier. The paper underwent a deep change in 2008 as it began becoming the story, rather than reporting stories. Its publisher was pushed out and at least one reporter – Dave Staba – left and the entire operation became clouded in accusations and countercharges of journalistic and financial irresponsibility. That descent was further exacerbated by its founding editor’s alcoholism; he has since moved to California, gone to rehab, and rediscovered the joy of music.

Parlato, Illuzzi, Tony Farina, and Glenn Gramigna were like the four nebbishy horsemen of paid advertorial phony journalism in the late 90s and early aughts, and they’re still at it. Illuzzi’s dead, but the other three are still, to this day, writing for each other’s various ventures. More often than not, they’re merely parroting others’ talking points, acting as useful idiots for different politicians’ agendas. Parlato, however, has become the story in Niagara Falls with his constant antagonism with the state, city, and Seneca Nation over his recent ownership and operation of the depressing “One Niagara” flashcube building near the Rainbow Bridge; Hooker/Oxy’s former local offices. He ran into trouble with taxes, and then complained that he was being treated differently than the tax-free Senecas. He wasn’t holding the tax money in escrow in order to make a legal point; he just paid them whenever he felt like it.

I wrote about that episode here, and explained that, “[t]he ways in which the passage above is offensive are many, but to suggest that gays are not manly, or are emasculated; and to contrast the desirability of fighting versus homosexuality are idiotic and ignorant. Chances are, there are plenty of gay guys who could beat the living crap out of the author, so I fail to see the validity of the argument.“

Michael; I know you are committed to writing your reviews, and put a lot of effort into them. it is important for you to have the right publisher. i may not be it. i have a deep moral objection to publishing reviews of films that offend me. snow white and the huntsman is such a film. when my boys were young i would never have allowed them to go to such a film for i believe it would injure their developing manhood. if i would not let my own sons see it, why would i want to publish anything about it?

snow white and the huntsman is trash. moral garbage. a lot of fuzzy feminist thinking and pandering to creepy hollywood mores produced by metrosexual imbeciles.

I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta.

where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females.

i believe in manliness.

not even on the web would i want to attach my name to snow white and the huntsman except to deconstruct its moral rot and its appeal to unmanly perfidious creeps.

i’m not sure what headhunter has to offer either but of what I read about it it sounds kind of creepy and morally repugnant.

with all the publications in the world who glorify what i find offensive, it should not be hard for you to publish your reviews with any number of these.

they seem to like critiques from an artistic standpoint without a word about the moral turpitude seeping into the consciousness of young people who go to watch such things as snow white and get indoctrinated to the hollywood agenda of glorifying degenerate power women and promoting as natural the weakling, hyena -like men, cum eunuchs.

the male as lesser in courage strength and power than the female.

it may be ok for some but it is not my kind of manliness.

If you care to write reviews where men act like good strong men and have a heroic inspiring influence on young people to build up their character (if there are such movies being made) i will be glad to publish these.

i am not interested in supporting the reversing of traditional gender roles.

i don’t want to associate the Niagara Falls Reporter with the trash of Hollywood and their ilk.

it is my opinion that hollywood has robbed america of its manliness and made us a nation of eunuchs who lacking all manliness welcome in the coming police state.

now i realize that you have a relationship with the studios etc. and i would have been glad to have discussed this in person with you to help you segue into another relationship with a publication but inasmuch as we spent 50 minutes on the phone from paris i did not want to take up more of your time.

In short i don’t care to publish reviews of films that offend me.

if you care to condemn the filmmakers as the pandering weasels that they are…. true hyenas.

i would be interested in that….

Frank

Weird. Weirder still is that it’s an email that a newspaper publisher in western New York wrote to his film critic. But all the talk of eunuchs, weasels, hyena-men – “manliness“. That’s the central theme. Do you spend a whole lot of time worrying about your “manliness” or anyone else’s “manliness”? I don’t much consider whether society is friendly or antagonistic to “manliness”, and I’m not at all threatened by females or feminism.

Not so, Parlato. In fact, demanding that females be subservient to man is his very ethos.

A few years ago, I first became aware of a Parlato-run site called “Manmaking.com“. It went away for a time, but it’s back online now, with a bizarre image:

Click to enlarge

I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.

But if you go into Archive.org’s waybackmachine, you can find what Parlato’s “Manmaking” site is really about. Parlato is a follower of a turn-of-the-last-century guru named Swami Vivekananda, who apparently wrote much about “manliness“, and who practiced a form of celibacy known as “brahmacharya“. This practice doesn’t just demand abstinence from sexual contact or activity; it more specifically prohibits any voluntary release of semen. Through mental discipline, the adherent is supposed to reach a state whereby he loses all sexual desire, and keeping his semen inside him is supposed to make him more spiritual or holy or some such nonsense.

On the front page of the former Manmaking.com is the following introductory passage (all [sic]):

Are you unmanly, cowardly, weak? This site may help you to be strong, to preserve the manly fire within, to look upward, to hold your breath, and gain strength, to go out into the world with absolute courage, to shut off that filthy television set which promotes effiminate behavior, to stop looking inordinately at the body of woman with greedy, weak and sickening lustful eyes and be a man, a giver of strength to one and all. Be chaste and come and rule nature, inner and outer.

Are you depressed, lacking in vigor, failing to succeed? Then stop your filthy habits at once. Stop groveling at the feet of woman. Banish this weakness of the knees. A brave man never bends the knees. Be celibate. Be chaste, and you’ll never be weak.

Continence is the essence of spiritual life. ‘Of all austerities, the practice of continence is supreme. He who practices it is verily a god, not a man.’ The illumined knowledge of Brahman comes naturally to a person who practices continence for thirty-two years. He who wastes this energy falls from the spiritual path and becomes dissipated.

So little time has passed when men were pridefully compared to lions. But what the eviscerators failed to note as they came mincingly to our town, and to our nation and told how we are diminished, our manly strength of little purpose, our values: to be less of courage, than lust, the metro-sexual’s effeminate ideal: to trade dignity and freedom for safety and comfort – as they tried to tame the wild, there is a place beyond where it cannot be so. Where it is never so: There is a home for heroes.

In answer to the lioness’s last stupendous roar, he but looked it seemed to the tip of his nose. This was after all a lion. Then he dropped his voice a full octave lower than her last and roared a lion’s roar that shook the night. Easily too it overwhelmed all the other roars before it and broke the stillness as if it was a bombshell exploding. The sound rustled through the trees, out into to the tame, and urban landscape — orderly, effete, dissipated — and called, “remember me? Remember?

At the Buffalo zoo at dusk, a lion roared lower and loudest, beyond what any lioness could have equaled. And if it were the silent night, in places where lions run free, it would have echoed across the windswept veldt, down the rushing river, to be carried to the sea where all things merge. It would have been known to the wild: a lion is on the move tonight.

Nothing complete until the king had spoken, the lioness seemed satisfied with his final roar. She was now silence, herself. There was no more roaring – as if he had given the final satisfactory answer.

But the Hyenas – they are ruled by the females:

Earlier that day, I had seen hyenas in a pen where females rule. With final yelp they nip their weaker mates and bloody them. In the kingdom of the lion, there is no yelping. Nor does he tremble at noises.

In the silence, below the clouds, obscured by darkness, obscuring the silver, lonely stars, and obscured in turn by leaves of trees, whether maple or the banyan, spreading branches blended into night, satisfied, I turned to go.

Each is great unto himself, no doubt, yet to me, it is the lion. Never hyenas. Although gathering in packs around us, remember, it takes but one lion to stave them all off.

I shall meditate on the lion’s heart tonight.

Pro forma: Parlato is free, of course, to believe whatever he wants. Absent physical or mental abuse, he is free to think whatever he wants of women and feminism, however archaic or offensive. Indeed, he is free to run his newspaper however he wants and to print whatever he wants in there. Certainly the Constitution prohibits the government from in any way interfering with what he prints, but the community in western New York should know who’s printing what “news” in the Niagara Falls Reporter. His conceit is so strong, he runs a website called “Journalism101”, consisting mostly of paid full-page advertisements he took out in the Reporter to advance his agendas before he bought the paper outright.

I don’t know what any of this has to do with running a newspaper or journalism. It seems to me to be proselytization, using the Reporter‘s former good name and reputation as cover. Calleri’s revelations about Parlato and the Reporter may come as a shock to some. Unfortunately, Parlato’s gynophobia is nothing new, and deeply ingrained in his belief system. Now that he owns a newspaper, look forward to seeing him use it to proselytize against women, feminism, and “cowardly” “dog” men. He’s already begun.

If prostitutes in the Falls start disappearing, the police should probably make this guy the first “person of interest”. Jesus Christ, what the hell could have possibly happened to this maniac for him to hold those views?

Seriously though, the Reporter, much like Artvoice in Erie County, is sitting in about the half the businesses in Niagara Falls. Any person who is even partially conscientious should demand that these businesses refuse to carry that newspaper as a condition of future patronage.

I want to be the first to demand that local governments stop funding this rag. No longer should public notices be printed in such a hateful piece of crap. Write whatever the hell you want just don’t expect taxpayers to help fund it.

Finally, an educated and inspired citizen amongst us! Dear sir, I most emphatically agree with you in your earnest quest for public budgetary competence, and frugality. It becomes necessary to mention that the Reporter is privately owned and not publicly funded, but enough of that. Your earnest conclusion where you so eloquently and nobly implore the reporter staff, nay, all authors everywhere to write cum liberalitate without expectation of or dependance on public monies is worthy of praise and admiration.

Full disclosure. Many years ago I helped Mr. Parlato with an environmental matter. I haven’t seen him since. At the time I was receiving ‘deep throat” phone calls from some shadowy figure dishing me some dirt on Parlato suggesting that he was involved in some devious housing matters. I couldn’t remember any details if I had to. Parlato was convinced that ‘deep throat’ was a competitor of his , a fellow named Paladino – who I had never of.

This hit piece on Parlato is because he thinks that men have been emasculated? So what? So do I.
I have long complained that men in TV commercials are portrayed as bumbling, effiminate, cowardly, no-nothings and incompetents. Most of the men in sit-coms are either jerks or gay. The American MALE is nowhere to be found in most RV shows. The one dementional tough-guy cop characters go too far the other way. (Tom Sellick might be the exception)

Why are men portrayed so effeminately? My guess is because the majority of H-wood screenwriters are gay and you write what you know.

I have no idea if Mr. Parlato echos my sentiments. I don’t read his stuff. In fact I din’t know that he writes. But if he’s tired of effeminate men in the media, well, so am I.

Clay: Did you bother to read the thing, or are you so fixated on the manliness part?

The point Alan’s making is that a paper that SHOULD be a check on the Niagara Gazette isn’t, and that it hasn’t been for some time. A person’s agenda(and make no mistake, ANYONE who owns a paper has one; just recall A.J. Liebling’s quote about freedom of the press)should interfere as little as possible with journalism. Problem is, these days you can have so many interlocking interests that it’s tough to know where one part stops and another begins.

It isn’t very hard to notice the absence of MEN in hollywood, and it is annoying, that when we consider that one of the only mediums through witch such a diverse nation can collectively share in is its media and entertainment, and the writers of said entertainment being ostentatiously, even obstreperously anti traditional-caucasian -heterosexual-christian-male, that it becomes damaging propaganda to the victims, and to those around them.
I don’t even think the writer of this article has failed to notice, but his public acknowledgement of it might compromise his position at an admittedly leftist publication. To answer your final question, journalists, like police officers , receive measurable increase in either reputation, rank, pecuniae, or all of these when they have successfully caught a wrongdoer; unfortunately, sometimes police and journalists often fire first and ask the pertinent questions later. I saw nothing of Bedenko offering Parlato a chance to tell his side of it.

Wow…just wow.
I knew, through friends in the business, the guys that started the NF Reporter, and I can’t believe what it has become in their absence. I’ve noticed a marked decline in both the quantity and quality of journalism there. What started as an underdog’s answer to the Gazette has become a poorly constructed rag-tabloid of the worst kind. I just couldn’t figure out why,although I noticed (until my resataurant was smart enough to stop carrying it a few months ago) that some guy named Frank Parlato was doing the bulk of the “reporting”. Frank Parlato is an angry, unhinged moron…but what do I know, I’m just a woman 😉

Your article was a bit biased, but what is alarming is that your conclusions come perilously close to relying on chance in their accuracy, although they relate to the general topics of Parlato’s emails and writings, I think you cheated yourself and the readers on falling back on the easy, political verbi diei (latin, meaning words of the day, fyi), such as gynophobia (latin again), within what you have quoted, and the available resources online and in print, there is nothing of Parlato to indicate gynophobia (fear) or misogyny (hate), but his tone does seem rather to have a chastising tone towards “males” ( not men, a term which has objective qualifications) who do not live up to being men.
Further, promiscuity results in disease, bastardy, overpopulation and more societal ills than we have time to dissert upon, but it is, sine dubio, not preferable in most to chastity, and is reckless of hollywood to glamorize it. Dispute you this?

Niagara Falls Reporter Publisher responds to article by Frank Parlato
A few clarifications concerning this article I think are in order.
First, Michael Calleri did not have a full time job at the Niagara Falls Reporter. At the height of his career he was paid $25 per week.
I cut it to zero, which is what he was worth.
Actually Calleri is a guy who likes to go to movies, about 20 times a week. He can, he told me, get in for free if he tells theater owners he is a reviewer for a bona fide publication like the Niagara Falls Reporter. Calleri used this gambit for years to support his hobby as he churned out a weekly column of drivel he called a movie review for the Reporter.
About six months ago, I told Calleri that I did not care to publish the type of reviews he was doing, but, if he would care to concentrate on something important, supporting the efforts of local entertainment, as opposed to big-corporate Hollywood movies, or if he could find movies to review that upheld a kind of human dignity that I once tried to explain to him, but he was incapable of understanding, I would be glad to discuss this with him.
He was not interested. He wanted to spend his time going to movies.
Although Calleri did publish my email accurately, it was actually not sent to him for publication. And since it was only an email, I did not punctuate it as one would for publication. That said, I stand behind what I wrote.
One of the problems with Calleri’s writing and probably the main reason his movie reviews were hardly read is that he lacks the fundamentals in sound thinking or logic.
He misunderstood the email and leaps to several hasty conclusions.
I might remind the reader that the email does not say I would not consider reviews of films where men and women are both shown in an inspiring light. I am simply not interested in films that demean men. I am also uninterested in reviews of films that demean women.
I did not say that women should have less courage or strength than a man. I merely said I do not have an interest in publishing reviews of films that depict men as weaker, dumber, more cowardly or lower than women. In other words, no male bashing. And, consequently, no female bashing.
Violence, vulgarity, gender bashing, moronic sex acts on the screen, racial bashing, violent women, violent men, promiscuous men and women are the common fare of Hollywood fed not only to adults but to young people.
I mean who but a moron would want his young children watching the kind of filth and violence shown (and gleefully reviewed) by Hollywood every day?
I have no interest in reviewing such movies.
Perhaps many modern movie goers do not care for films of genuine heroism, whether the heroes are men or women.
But a movie that shows noble, inspiring themes, I would be glad to review.
I also admit that I am interested in publishing that which promotes traditional family values and at the risk of offending many, supporting the traditional roles between a husband and wife, where, for the welfare of their children, a mother stays home to raise her children and a father goes out to work damn hard. That I applaud self sacrificing motherhood should not be construed as an indication that I hate women by far left liberals.
I operate from the premise that “women deserve and are fit for everything.” And I believe in freedom. No one is forced to adopt traditional values. There is nothing stopping a woman from doing anything she desires, if she has the talent. And nothing stopping anyone from promoting what they believe and publishing it or making movies about it.
I sincerely hope more movies are made that genuinely inspire young women. And young men too. But more than that, I hope that young people veer away from movies and live life more. There are better things to do with our time than sit around and watch others live.
That said, I did enjoy the unintentionally funny and immature rudeness of some of the writers who posted comments.
The Niagara Falls Reporter enjoys controversy and is an often controversial newspaper. It is geared toward local news and not reviews of big-corporate Hollywood movies. Fortunately, for those who fear our decision not to publish reviews of these, there is no shortage of publications that glorify Hollywood big-corporate movies. Many of these same publications take advertising dollars from these Hollywood corporations.
I wonder if that influences their reviews?
In the meantime, in what is generally described as a declining newspaper market, the Niagara Falls Reporter has doubled its distribution during the last seven months (since I took over) and operates consistently in the black.
I owe a hearty thanks to our growing ranks of readers and our advertisers who know that with our faithful readership, advertising in the Reporter pays off. These it seem are as far removed from Hollywood and its morals as movie-lover Calleri is from a legitimate, full time working writer.
Thanks.

“I also admit that I am interested in publishing that which promotes traditional family values and at the risk of offending many, supporting the traditional roles between a husband and wife, where, for the welfare of their children, a mother stays home to raise her children and a father goes out to work damn hard. ”

That totally explains the front page story where you hang out with hookers and crack dealers. Real family values there.

Dear Tom Beecher, it does seem that you have erroneously concluded that Parlato’s story on crack dealers and hookers was some glamorization of the lifestyle; should you read the article you will, I have great faith, discover that it is a stark portrayal of the hardships that these people are born into, or place themselves in.
Further, in the tone of the articles, which are rather unbiased, but simple interviews and statements of facts and summaries, most if not all readers were shocked at the depravity and hardship that these unfortunates endure. The journalistic approach he employed is comparatively subtle, but not impossible to grasp.

I read the story. It was poorly written, disjointed, and didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about prostitutes and drug dealers from my time working in EMS, and living in the city. Nothing new was gleaned here; people who sell their bodies and deal in the drug trade have hard lives. I don’t think anyone needed an article to tell them that.

Since Mr. Parlato took over, the paper is full of strange stories of questionable public good or interest, mixed in with some decent investigative reporting from time to time. That, in and of itself isn’t all THAT impressive, since corruption in Niagara Falls isn’t hard to find, or expose. There’s also the matter of the little pictures that he sprinkles all over the pages,with strange slogans and phrases. When your readers have no clue what the hell you’re talking about, as many readers of the Reporter in local eateries around here will attest to, you’re doing it wrong.

Mr. Parlato is turning the NFR into his own personal printed blog, harkening back to the wingnut newsletter craze of the previous generation. The Reporter only has the circulation it does because of what the paper WAS under Mr. Hudson. I hope Mr. Parlato gets whatever it is he’s looking for from his stake in the paper. Whatever that is.

Firstly, you have changed your stance from your previous accusation of Parlato being a journalist who associates with hookers and crack dealers, and have for now settled that his article was uninformative to you.
“I don’t think anyone needed an article to tell them that”..Such a statement if accepted into general practice with regard to all matters of knowledge and learning, if employed, would certainly result in widespread ignorance.With that logic, we should discontinue, say, reading when we are 6 because we know how to do it, and nothing further is to be gained by its repetition or further examination.
I dare say it might be reckoned presumptuous to state that such an article was of no use to the Erie-Niagara region.”…mixed in with some decent investigative reporting from time to time. That, in and of itself isn’t all THAT impressive…” you become somewhat ambiguous here, making a concession, and discounting.”When your readers have no clue what the hell you’re talking about…many readers…will attest to…”I have no doubt you can substantiate that. I haven’t seen anything of it.

I read the entire blog by Mr. Calleri and it seemed to me pretty much sour grapes. It’s clear the man harbored a great deal of resentment over what amounted to simply getting fired, so he resorted to a lengthy and boring recounting of the ups and downs of his “career” at the Reporter. One thing is clear, if it wasn’t for the Reporter breaking the news about the frackwater treatment proposal at the Niagara Falls Water Board, they’d probably be trucking the stuff in right now. And Maid of the Mist would still be ripping off both the governments of Canada and New York State next year. And numerous other good things that have come about because of the Reporter that wouldn’t have happened given the pathetic Gazette and the occasional and cursory attention paid Niagara Falls and Niagara County by the Buffalo publications. – Jim Hufnagel

I’m not going to doubt this fellow if he says he has – like I stated in an earlier comment, I haven’t read the Reporter in a while (since it started to suck LOL) so who knows? That being said, even if he did publish the articles, it doesn’t discount the rest of it from being misogynistic drivel.

Parlato’s articles on manliness and his email have shown that he has assimilated and analyzed a great deal of social matters and to conclude that today there is a confounding societal turmoil caused by political correctness and its impossibilities of adherence, and androphobia.
I think he’s right when he criticizes effete men, and as far as the charge of misogyny goes (from greek, meaning hater of women or girls, not meaning “racist”) there actually is nothing in the hyena bit or the email to indicate that, but that it is contemptible for a male to be baselessly ruled by a female on the strength of the sex drive; with this I most emphatically agree.
As a reader of the Reporter, and Parlato’s articles, I’ve observed that he is a libertarian, he’s all about freedom for the people, and not government force to uphold political correctness and other unnatural political drives that come perilously close to fascism, and as one man who enjoys not being told what to do, and not being told that 2+2=5 because the party wants it to be so, I enjoy what he has written, and agree with him more often than not.
Androphobia is of course an unfortunate mental disorder, and it has many victims in all classes, regardless of intelligence level. Parlato highly esteems manhood, and so do I. I also esteem womanhood, and I never confuse it with manhood. I believe in freedom for women, but just because men and women have freedom to do as they wish, doesn’t mean that they should be encouraged to recklessly indulge in ignoble sexual promiscuity, and if you haven’t observed that in your typical hollywood production, you haven’t been watching, or you’re prone to it, which is worse.

Not heard the name Calleri since his days of being on WGR radio barfing out his useless critiques of movies. It was clear to me then at 19 years old, the man was a hack. Funny thing is i read the reporter regularly (damn fine publication) and always skipped over that column ( pretty sure that was everyone’s standard move ) and really didn’t know that was the same guy from way back when. Upon reading this article i learned one thing – i was a very bright 19 year old 🙂

That’s great, Sean. Listen , there are tons of websites online that give definitions for free. I’m so glad you took the time to research my response thoroughly, to copy and paste these words that are new to you, and to utilize all the sources available so that you could respond in turn without making an error.
Now if you had applied that same diligence here in the first place, we might have something very interesting to blog about indeed.
Good luck with your studies!

mr parlato my name is fefe as pierre gilles fenner sheligh ex ‘s , after i had a friend through circonstances drop her to the american ambassy to put my self in a safe position ,she has compromise all account that i have on my name on the web , i am a buisness man ,your the first person i know , she seems to have respect for ,i will please count on your help to make me have my life back,i know my right she is not allowed to use my personal life for granted .i would call you
bbut she take the care to use feeling manipulation as allways to delete al my phone numbers
excuse me …but i have no other way
fefe,mr pierre gilles fenner
she posting her stuff on my facebook -calling all my ex girl friend ,its really not a way of living ….
tank you 509-3678-8881
the e-mail i use i dont got acces to it
thank you

sheligh lee love also brought cops at my house the last time ,at 10 o clock pm,she came with friends of hers to beat me in my contry ,the last time lock me out of my house ,manipulate my account to make lose money from companies in the music industry for a reccord deal, that is so important for me ,just because i realize that i dont want to be fiance no more with a psycomanic woman that has spend to much time with the worng person in her life ,like she has told me
i request your help ,because its the only option that i have , she got me almost arrested for the first time of my life
please mr frank parlato , i know that you are a really a concern citizen in your contry , be concern about my position
509-3678-8881
you are the only person she seems to respect as a father,that is why i realize that she lied….
waiting for your help i need her out of my life informations
its about sheligh lee love a good girl but not for me , i realize that i should be part of the he-man woman hatters ,i guess you had some one like her in your life
thank you. i really need a phone call , because i dont feel confortable using this option to solve the problem
my respect